In washing, drying and styling one's hair several end results are desired. Firstly, and most obviously, one desires that the hair be thoroughly cleaned. Most desirable is a hair care process which maintains the look and feel of clean hair between hair washings. Also in the cleaning and styling process, one desires hair conditioning providing ease of combing, relief from static electricity, manageability, and soft hair feel. Generally, these benefits are provided by a separate, rinse-off hair conditioning product. By "rinse-off" what is meant is that the product is applied to the hair (typically wet hair) and then rinsed off with water prior to drying the hair (or allowing the hair to air dry).
Finally, one desires a hair care process or product that provides hair styling benefits, especially hair style achievement and hold. The desire to have hair retain a particular shape is widely held. Such style retention is generally accomplished by either of two routes: permanent chemical alteration or temporary alteration of hair style and shape. A temporary alteration is one which can be removed by water or by shampooing. Temporary style alteration has generally been accomplished by means of the application of a third separate composition or compositions to dampened hair after shampooing and/or conditioning. The materials used to provide setting benefits have generally been resins or gums and have been applied in the form of mousses, gels, lotions, or sprays. This approach presents several significant drawbacks to the user. It requires a separate step following shampooing and conditioning to apply the styling composition. In addition, since the style hold is provided by resin materials which set-up on the hair, the hair tends to feel sticky or stiff after application and it is difficult to restyle the hair without further application of the styling composition.
It is desirable to provide hair care compositions which provide hair styling benefits to the user without the hair tending to feel sticky or stiff after application. It is also desirable to provide hair care compositions that can be applied to the hair in a rinse-off hair composition that can provide hair styling benefits without causing the hair to feel sticky or stiff after application. It is further desirable to provide hair care compositions providing such hair styling benefits which can also condition the hair in a single composition.
Hair care compositions which meet these objects have, in fact, been provided. Specifically, rinse-off hair care compositions that can style and/or condition the hair are described in U.S. application Ser. Nos. 07/551,118, 07,551,119, and 07/551,120, all filed Jul. 16, 1990 by Bolich, Norton, and Russell. These patent applications describe hair care compositions having a gel-like rheology based upon hydrophobically modified water soluble polymers and can contain hair styling polymers, including silicone macromer-containing hair styling polymers which both condition and style the hair. These compositions can also contain separate hair conditioning ingredients. The silicone macromer-containing polymers, as well as other rinse-off hair care compositions containing them, are also described in U.S. application Ser. No. 07/505,755, filed Apr. 6, 1990 by Bolich and Torgerson and U.S. Ser. No. 07/505,760, filed Apr. 6, 1990, by Torgerson, Bolich, and Garbe.
The compositions described in these patent applications can provide excellent hair styling and conditioning performance. The silicone macromer-containing polymer which is essential to these compositions, however, unfortunately is complex to manufacture and can be significantly more expensive than hair styling polymers not containing silicone macromer units.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,963,348, Bolich and Torgerson, issued Oct. 16, 1990, discloses hair styling agents and compositions containing the same wherein the hair styling agents disclosed are certain adhesive copolymers in a volatile, water-insoluble diluent. The copolymers that are discussed comprise a mixture of relatively hydrophilic monomers that form high glass transition temperature (Tg) homopolymers and less hydrophilic monomers that form lower Tg homopolymers. Exemplary hydrophilic, high Tg-forming monomers are identified as acrylate and methacrylate amides. It would be desirable to provide hair styling agents which do not require incorporation of the relatively hydrophilic acrylate and methacrylate amide monomers, which can make the polymers hygroscopic and sticky to the touch upon application to the hair.
An object of this invention, therefore, is to provide aqueous-base hair care compositions that can provide hair styling benefits without causing the hair to become excessively sticky or stiff and not requiring the use of either the relatively expensive silicone macromer-containing hair styling polymers or the incorporation of hydrophilic monomers into the hair styling polymer. It is especially desirable to provide such compositions which can be applied to the hair in the form of a rinse-off formulation, and which also can include separate hair conditioning ingredients.
These and other objects as may be apparent can be obtained by the invention described as follows.
All percentages reported herein are by weight of the total composition and all ratios reported herein are weight ratios, unless otherwise specifically indicated.